The U.S. National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency that supports science and engineering in all 50 states and U.S. territories. NSF was established in 1950 by Congress to promote the progress of science, advance the national health, prosperity and welfare, and secure the national defense.
The goal of the Electrochemical Systems program is to support fundamental engineering research aimed at innovative processes in electro- or photochemistry for the sustainable production of electricity, fuels, and chemicals. This includes research that leads to scalable, environmentally benign solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and leverage renewable resources. The grant emphasizes projects that offer a fundamental understanding of phenomena impacting system or component performance, like energy efficiency and product yield. It encourages research into energy storage that addresses the challenges of renewable electricity storage or transport propulsion and stresses the importance of understanding transport, kinetics, or thermodynamics in energy storage materials. The program supports advanced battery systems, advanced fuel cell systems for transportation, flow batteries for energy storage applications, and photochemical processes for fuel production, excluding work on commercially available battery systems. It focuses on the molecular-level understanding of key barriers to improved performance in electrochemical and organic photovoltaic devices and encourages proposals that demonstrate economic impacts and the potential for scalable conversion processes. Multidisciplinary projects that address novel electrochemical systems for chemicals production, emphasizing process intensification and modularization, are particularly welcomed. Proposals should compare the novelty and impact of the proposed work against current technologies and highlight its importance in engineering science and potential societal or industrial impact.